$4 Trillion and Counting:
The Pension System in America



“I remember going up to hearings with horror stories of one kind or another.”
–former Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz

“Many plans were, seemingly, designed not to give people pensions, but to promise people pensions and not deliver.”
–Law Professor Merton Bernstein

“It seems to me that we now have an alphabet soup of pension regulation.”
–Dr. Olivia Mitchell, Pension Research Council

“We have a two-class society in retirement. We have very, well-off retirees, and we have many who can’t pay their bills.”
–Karen Ferguson, Pension Rights Center